Sharon Short

Sharon Short has followed a life-long passion for writing, a journey which began when Sharon was about six years old and wrote a book called “The Fireman,” which was subsequently published; the entire print run sold out immediately! OK, so Sharon’s first book was about eight pages long, bound in a red construction paper cover, self-published (though she precociously wrote “Published by Little Golden Books” on the inside front cover), and had a print run of… one copy, which a kindly aunt generously purchased for a penny.

Since then, Sharon’s journey has led her to publish (so far) fourteen novels, a collection of humor columns, and nearly 1,000 articles and columns in the Dayton Daily News, Writer’s Digest Magazine, and other publications. Sharon is also the three-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) Individual Artist Grants, a Montgomery County (Ohio) Arts & Cultural District Literary Artist Fellowship, and a John E. Nance Thurber House Residency.

Sharon’s most recent novels are the Kinship Historical Mystery series written under the pen name Jess Montgomery (www.jessmontgomeryauthor.com) and published by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. The Widows, the first in the series, was an Ohioana Fiction Finalist in 2020 and won the Ohioana Reader’s Choice Award for Fiction in 2020. The most recent novel in the series, The Echoes, was named an Amazon Editors’ Pick for Best Thriller, Mystery & Suspense in 2022. Titles in the series have received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal and have been on several “best of” and “most anticipated” lists for mysteries.

As Sharon Short, she published My One Square Inch of Alaska (Penguin Plume) in 2013; her screenplay adaptation of the novel was an official selection of the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto in 2016, where it won the Fan Favorite Award. She is also the author of two other mystery series, the Josie Toadfern “Stain-Busting” Mysteries (Avon Books) and the Patricia Delaney “Electronic Gumshoe” Mysteries (Fawcett Books).

Sharon is also passionate about encouraging others on the writing journey. In addition to teaching for Writer’s Digest University, she writes the “Level Up Your Writing (Life)” column for Writer’s Digest Magazine and was a guest speaker at the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference in 2022. She was the “Literary Life” columnist for the Dayton Daily News for ten years and is a former Executive Director of the Antioch Writers’ Workshop.

Sharon holds a B.A. in English from Wright State University and in 2013 was named the university's Outstanding Alumna for the College of Liberal Arts Department of English based on her achievements as a writer, columnist, and literary arts advocate. She also holds an M.A. in English from Bowling Green State University. She lives in her native state of Ohio where, in addition to writing, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, watching good TV shows and attending local theatre, spoiling her cats, swimming, and making occasional sprees into baking, hiking, fishing, and crocheting.

Learn more about Sharon at www.sharonshort.com

p.s. For those who didn’t start writing at age six, Sharon would like to point to the example of her great-grandmother who began writing poetry at age ninety-something (inspired, in part, by the cute eighty-something gentleman who worked at the corner store.) That particular great-grandmother lived to 102. The beauty of the writing journey is that you can begin it at any time.